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CAMERON * PALL.BOOK AM) JOl! MMNTERS, CORNER OF COLLEOK AND CXI0X STS. 

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APPEAL 



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IN BEHALF OF THEIR 



UNIYEESITY, 



BY 



J-OS3:2Sr BERRIE2ST X.IKTIDSX.B^', 



CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVEKSITT, 



June 12th ; 1856. 






NASHVILLE: 

CAiOXON k FALL, BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS, CORNER COLLEGE AND UNION STRKET3. 

1856. 







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COMMITTEE APPOINTED BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES TO SOLICIT 


SUBSCRIPTIONS. 




ROBEET C. FOSTER 3D, 


ESQ. 


JOHN M. LEA, ESQ, 




0. K. WINSTON", M. IX 


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TO THE CITIZENS OF DAVIDSON COUNTY. 



A residence of nearly the third of a century in your midst, 
an entire identity of interests with your own, a warm attach- 
ment to the great cause of education, and my official position 
as the representative of the Trustees and Faculties of your 
University, induce and compel me to make a plain and honestly 
spoken appeal to you in its behalf. 

To the existence and permanent prosperity of a flourishing 
and useful seat of learning a large material endowment in 
grounds, buildings, and productive funds is indispensable. 
Look at Great Britain, France, Germany, Kussia and our own 
country, and you will find that all the great universities have 
been liberally endowed, either by government or individual 
contributions, or by both combined. In the Northern and 
Eastern States of this noble confederated empire we find that 
the beneficence of liberal and public spirited private individ- 
uals has mainly contributed to found and sustain academies, 
colleges, and universities, which now dispense the benefits of 
learning and science to thousands of aspiring youth of both 
sexes, and keep fresh and green amidst a grateful people the 
names and memories of those who endowed them. 

In the South and North-West, State or General Government 
aid has established the chief institutions. The liberal patronage 
of the Legislatures of North and South Carolina, and of Vir- 
ginia has created universities of which those States are justly 
proud. Michigan, Wisconsin, etc., have very wealthy institu- 
tions by means of large grants of lands from the National 
Congress. 




Our University has nothing to expect from either of these 
sources, it must be built up as Princeton, as Yale, as Amherst, 
and other colleges in the same category, by the voluntary and 
cordial liberality of the people in whose midst it is located, and 
by the active and faithful labors of its officers and instructors. 

At present though accomplishing a great work, one of which 
its friends and professors may justly be proud, especially when 
contrasted with the means at its disposal, it must yet be regard- 
ed as but in its infancy, so much is there still to be done, towards 
making it what it should be — one of the leading universities 
in America- — an institution where the study of every branch 
of science, literature, and art may be fully and profitably pur- 
sued. 

It has two Departments (Medical and Collegiate) in successful 
operation, and for the relief and permanent establishment of 
the latter it now appeals to every liberal and intelligent inhabi- 
tant of the city and county. 

The Undergraduate or Collegiate Department was re-organ- 
ized a year since upon such a plan as would adapt it to supply 
the wants of our own neighborhood, and also make it a desirable 
and eligible resort for students from distant localities. With 
this view the military system of go vernment and discipline was 
adopted, whilst it still remained open to day scholars upon the 
usual plan. 

The military system is recommended by several very weighty 
considerations: it provides an efficient method of government, 
without which a large collection of boys is a nuisance in any 
community — it furnishes a highly useful means of exercise and 
physical training, a point wofully and fatally neglected in all 
our schools — it gives to the student, without any interference 



with his academic course, such a knowledge of military science 
as every American citizen should possess, since he may at any 
time be called upon to arm in defence of his country against 
foreign invasion or domestic treason. 

The Faculty of this Department were appointed by the Trus- 
tees with the condition that no salaries should be guaranteed 
by the Board, and that they should depend entirely upon the 
tuition fees for their support. They were also expected to raise 
from public subscriptions means sufficient to erect buildings for 
the accommodation of students from a distance, and to put the 
extensive grounds, constituting the College site, in suitable or- 
der, which altogether would require about $38,000 — a sum very 
small to expect from the citizens of so wealthy a city and county 
when compared with the contributions of Lebanon, Murfrees- 
boro', Clarksville, Florence, Greensboro 1 , and other places to 
similar undertakings. 

The Faculty in a short time through the energetic exertions 
of a member of the Board, Capt. R C. Foster, 3d., raised some 
$18,000 in good subscriptions from about thirty liberal friends 
of the institution. And at once contracted for a neat, substan- 
tial building, capable of accommodating 150 boarders. The 
cost of this building, with Mess Hall and out houses, has been 
about $32,000, making a debt against the Faculty of $14,000. 
To furnish the buildings properly, to lay out and adorn the 
grounds, so as to make them an ornament to the county, will 
require not less than $6,000 more. 

Will the whole of Nashville and Davidson County, minus 
the above mentioned 32 or 33 individuals, raise this sum of 
$20,000, and thus relieve the Faculty of a debt which must 
necessarily retard their success, and make the College in every 



respect as it should be, complete and well furnished, worthy of 
its name, and its location? 

Surely this is little enough to ask at your hands. You have 
in your midst an institution with nearly 500 students and 15 pro- 
fessors, to whom no salaries are guaranteed, thus giving you the 
best security that they will most faithfully discharge their duty. 
The University brings in annually thousands of dollars from 
abroad, and retains within your limits thousands which otherwise 
would be drawn to other counties where colleges are in operation. 
It has given you reputation for learning and science through- 
out the Union, and it is emphatically your own, for it belongs 
to no ecclesiastical, or political, or social party or body what- 
ever. Its Board of Trustees is numerous; taken from every 
pursuit in life, and all religious persuasions, and political affinities, 
and are leading men in their various callings and pursuits. 
There is no citizen in Tennessee who is not interested in the 
permanence and prosperity of this University, and who has 
not a title in its property, whether he is a Methodist or Bap- 
tist, an Episcopalian or Presbyterian, a Whig, Democrat, or 
American, Mason, Son of Temperance, or Odd-Fellow. 

What you give to it then, you give to yourselves. It is 
money invested so as inevitably for all coming time to benefit 
yourselves, your neighbors, your children and their children. 
You may lay up great fortunes, and your grand-children are as 
likely as any one else's to be beggars. You endow a great Uni- 
versity here, and through a good education freely dispensed 
from its halls those poor children may rise in their turn to high 
usefulness and honorable distinction. So fugitive and uncer- 
tain are all private fortunes in a government constituted as ours, 
that public institutions — religious, literary, charitable, scientific 



— are the surest means of treasuring up our labor for the benefit 
of those who come after us. 

The University then is yours, it will descend to your heirs. 
It has, and can have, no interest or being separate from those of 
your community, and it cannot be an importunate and suppliant 
beggar at your hands. In this respect it stands on the same 
footing with the church. It is the giver and not the recipient, 
since it returns in immaterial wealth a hundred fold more than 
it receives in material aid. It asks only an enlightened, liberal, 
and cheerfully rendered support from a public who appreciate 
its importance, and desire to enjoy its benefits. It would be use- 
less to ask any other. 

When this Department is placed upon such a basis as to 
furnish a good academic and collegiate education to our youth, 
then will the Board go on and make efforts to establish schools 
for the special benefit of agriculturists, manufacturers, miners, 
engineers, etc., etc. ; and also for the erection of observatories, 
museums, and galleries of art. 

We must finish one thing well at a time. The more readily 
the aid required is furnished by you, the more speedily will you 
be in possession of a magnificent institution. Our business is 
to work patiently and faithfully at the undertaking committed 
to our charge, and to build stone, brick, straw, or not at all, just 
as you may furnish stone, brick, straw, or nothing. 

We receive all donations with gratitude, and we wish all our 
citizens to inspect and examine the Institution for themselves, 
and as their own. 

As to pleasing all men, and making all boys perfect in brains, 
manners, and morals, this we do not undertake. But with the 
kindly sympathy and generous countenance of our fellow-citi- 
zens, we are very sure that the exertions of the Faculties and 
the zeal and good conduct of the students will win a wide spread 
good name for your University, your County, and State. 

That the present wants and prospects of the College may be 
better understood, it may be well to add, that the first year of 



its existence upon the new plan has. just closed under circum- 
stances highly encouraging to its friends. This Academic year 
commenced ten months since under very great disadvantages. 
The Autumn was remarkably sickly throughout the valley of 
the Mississippi, causing many parents to keep their children at 
home. At the opening our buildings were unfinished and our 
Faculty incomplete. The winter also was remarkable for its 
severity, and by reason of the incomplete condition of the build- 
ings occasioned no small damage and inconvenience. 

Notwithstanding these adverse circumstances, discouraging to 
the Facult} 7 and demoralizing in their effects upon the students, the 
session has terminated with 154 matriculants, and there 
have been in constant attendance 120 or more students. Of these 
some 90 have been residents in the College, and so unobtrusively 
and quietly have they conducted themselves that there presence 
here has hardly been noticed. This fact is the highest encomium 
upon the character of the government exercised by the Faculty. 

The students are well satisfied that the Faculty are honestly 
endeavoring to redeem every pledge made by them. The 
Faculty are harmonious, united, and satisfied that this is in all 
respects an admirable location for the school. They are willing 
to give their best years and best efforts for building it up. 

For the next session there is every promise of a large increase 
both from home and abroad. 

All that we now need, is that our fellow-citizens should 
promptly, and cheerfully, and with no stinted hand do their work 
— finish the buildings, and improve the grounds, now and al- 
ways their own perpetual inheritance. 




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